£6K

That's what the dental treatment that Mr. Spouse probably needs will cost. It's also, coincidentally, the cost of one round of IVF+PGD, give or take. Good thing we have plenty of equity in the house - that's what comes of both of you moving into one house, both from more expensive cities.

I was at a small, friendly conference last week and shared with the colleague (from a different institution) who gave me a lift a small taste of our difficulties - while mainly talking about my horror at my brother's childrearing (or lack thereof) principles. One of the main things I'm concerned about is that he smacks his older girl, and I imagine will do so with the younger one when she's a bit older. If we adopt, then I'm not sure I would actually dare leave my children alone with him. Even if we had birth children, I'd be very wary, but for a child who has experienced abuse to be smacked - well, you can imagine.

This is sort of by way of saying that we are starting to think about adoption again. Ironically I think we are more likely to decide in favour if there is nothing wrong with either of our chromosomes - though I'm sure you all understand that, because nothing wrong = no fix. I was thinking about this after my conversation with C on the way to the conference and decided when I got home to have another look at the copy of Children Who Wait* which had arrived a few weeks ago. But there was a new one. One little girl - now aged exactly 12 months - had been in the previous two issues, and is half British, half-country-I-lived-in-for-2-years. There are children of a surprising variety of nationalities - I counted about 5 European ones plus American - usually the SW depts ask for a family that can "reflect and promote" or "reflect or promote" the child's ethnic origin (perceval, I haven't seen any part-German kids but I'm sure they are in the system - neglectful families come in all ethnicities). They were also looking for a family who were practicing Christians, though this particular child was a "reflect AND" not a "reflect OR". The nationality bit made me go "ooh" and the Christian bit made Mr. Spouse go "ooh". So even if this child is not for us, it made us think. I'm trying not to Google the meaning of her first name (it is similar to the name a friend over there's son has)

We are going to our next appointment just before Easter and have a nice break in London (with the clinic open evening) and Belgium (with beer and chocolate. Fruit beer. Mmm... Guess who's given up alcohol for Lent??) and the Isle of Wight (long story). We plan to touch base with our social worker briefly before going away, on the assumption that she won't make an appointment for a few weeks anyway, if that's what we decide to do.

*if you don't know it, it's a publication in which local authority social work departments can advertise children who are looking for adoptive families, who are "hard to place" for one reason or another. They have to pay for this so don't do it if they can avoid it.